It’s been a little gloomy here, what with blood diamonds fueling civil wars, Chicago youth murdered by the hundreds, and bacteria holding my counter tops hostage. How about a few cookies to cheer us up?

Of course, these can’t be conflict-free cookies. Their very batter stirs up psychological disturbances from my past. Behavior was modified and inner children were hugged in the baking of these cookies. Thankfully my friend Tim of Lottie + Doof was there to help me through it.

It all started in 1979 on the first day I met my stepmother. I was three, but just as neurotic as I am at thirty-five. I don’t remember this day at all, but I am told that on the first day we met, we baked cookies. What a classic lure! Just as Hansel and Gretel were lured into the witch’s oven by a gingerbread house, I was lured by chocolate chips. And just as the cannibalistic witch of the fairy tale fattens up children in an iron cage, I was fattened up with cookies!

Actually, knowing three year old me, I probably licked the spoon briefly with a paranoid tongue and ate a single cookie with hesitant bird bites. Life is pretty Disney for my stepmother and me today, but many of our years together were quite Grimm. And so the cookie-lure of my primary years lurks in my psyche.

Flash forward six years to the fourth grade. I was drafted into the Brownies. Yesssss. Finally, I had an in to that exclusive group, that secret society, no doubt shrouded in secret handshakes and hard to crack codes. We would surely meet in a cave somewhere, don our brown sashes, and ceremoniously pin our sisters as we chant in strange tongues.

Really we met in the Kindergarten classroom at my school, and glued a Polaroid photo of ourselves onto a construction paper flower. How lame. There was no secret handshake, nothing secret at all. The overhead fluorescent classroom lights gave off their ordinary glare. Ah but…. on the calendar… a meeting at Lisa Bard’s house! It must be off school grounds where the secret society flourishes. And what happened there? Kids yawned, and moms delivered instructions on how to sell Girl Scout cookies. I dropped out of Brownies immediately.

So here is where I started to associate cookies with The Other. At this time I lived in two different towns, and went to school in a third. It’s a long story that involves divorce, joint custody, and now cookies. Cookies were for the Lisa Bards of the world, the people who host Brownie meetings. Cookies were for suburban bake sales, for sports teams I don’t play on. That doesn’t mean I won’t eat cookies, but I don’t bake them, and I certainly do not sell them.

When we become adolescents, we do a Spice Girls thing in which we have to look like everyone else while simultaneously looking only like ourselves. We’re all scantily clad, but only I am posh and only you are sporty. This extended into my twenties and thirties when it came to domestic tasks. I found that I often lived with a person to whom I assigned: Only you are the baker. Why did I remain so adolescent about this? My sense of efficacy as a domestic person was stymied as the people I lived with became talented cooks and bakers and homemakers. I became skilled at certain domestic tasks- arranging books beautifully on a shelf- but didn’t bother with others. One thing I still have not done, to this day, is baked cookies. My friend Tim, who I have known for eighteen years and at one point lived with for seven, is an incredible baker and blogger of cookies and more. His baking became increasingly enjoyable and intimidating as he racked up recipes and stacked up cookies throughout the years.

If you’re a teenager, you may assign discreet roles to yourself and your peers- you’re the jock, you’re emo, you’re the baker. But if you’re an adult, you may capitalize on your friends’ talents without being concerned with identify formation. You get over your stepmother’s lure and your Brownie disillusionment, and you get in the kitchen and roll up your sleeves. Today I’d like to be an adult, and bake some cookies with my friend.

It turns out that making cookies is both simpler and more complex than I thought. What’s complex is that it is chemistry and requires precision. For example, Tim taught me that when you measure the flour it’s important not to pack it in the measuring cup. You should spoon it in gently, spoonful by spoonful, then use the edge of the spoon to level off the top (just like in chemistry class). It’s also important that each raw cookie is the same size, so that they bake evenly. Unlike with cooking, you can’t get away with being experimental or crude. The simplicity lies in how wonderful it feels to share the cookies once they are done. It’s a pure act. You made this thing out of flour, sugar, butter, butter, butter, and a few more ingredients, you baked it, you handed it to someone, and they became happy. They ate it and smiled and felt better than they felt before you gave the cookie. I find that in my daily life I am constantly trying to make people happy, but it usually requires more layers or more time. Cookie happiness is immediate and pure.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and salt. Mix in the honey, vanilla, and olive oil, and cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, then add the flour, oats, and baking soda, and mix just until combined. With a silicone spatula, fold in the pistachios and dried cherries. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
(Or a for a while!)
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two half-sheet pans with parchment paper.
Using a small scoop, drop the dough onto the prepared pans, and lightly press down each cookie. Sprinkle with the fleur de sel. Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on wire racks.
This recipe makes about 70 small cookies.

Photograph by Tim Mazurek

BAKE SALE REDEUX

Remember the yawning kids at Lisa Bard’s house? The Girl Scout cookies I never sold? The suburban bake sales for sports teams I never played on? This time, I got my chance to sell cookies, my chance to belong. I helped Tim sell cookies along with his friend Sandra of Chicago’s best bakery, Floriole. They had a booth at Dose Market, a year-round market selling local fashion and food. Discriminating foodies chose between eggnog meringues, whole wheat shortbread, earl grey chocolate, and more. Some just bought them all to avoid having to choose. I ate them all, for the purpose of being able to describe them to customers.

Photograph by Tim Mazurek

Cookies, in their simplicity and complexity, mean something new to me now. They mean friendship, generosity, and happiness. They are something I can bake, and so I’ll bake on.
Coming soon: cookies for the neighbors.

If I thought it was hard to live so far away before, imagine my sense of loss now that I am aware of this hidden talent. And you do know that your cousin, Lisa has been baking cookies her whole life and now has a bakery after giving up a lucrative legal career. I believe this newly discovered talent will increase your ability to expand your many latent talents in the now expanding world of domesticity and marital status.
Plus it was a delicious story…..M

I got a glimpse of what a good writer you were a while back when you asked me to read your natl. board entries… But this is great! I love the premise for your blog… So many bloggers out there write about things they claim to be experts on… But you are more original… You take your readers along with you on your way to enlightenment about things we didn’t even know we were curious about. Thanks for sharing!

I am a fan of Lottie & Doof and now I am a fan of YOU! What a wonderful idea and what a great gift you have in writing! I am not a teacher but, a mother to two very inquisitive boys….you have just inspired me to make a list with them of what they want to know and set out on an adventure of learning!

My mind is now reeling about why I STILL am locked in to my role(s) and why I assign them to myself, and others, and let others assign them to me. Some of these roles keep me locked in place, stagnant, while the sudden reassignment of a role, especially one I had grown used to, can be such a shock to my sense of self. Oh, and I can’t forget the roles I once held that have just faded away. Tonight I’m going to list all of the roles I play, and then code them for “need to change, “need to enhance,” and “drop as soon as possible.”

Katie, this is a great post. I had no idea about the whole ‘dont pact the flour into a measuring cup’- that’s exactly what I do. Those days are now gone 🙂 What a fun/adventurous/yummy decision that you made!

maybe this ( reality) is not important but you never joined the brownies. you chose youth pro music which met at the same time the brownies met. and you went to both meetings to decide. You had already decided because YPM was an honor but you had to go through the charade which was grimm for both of us. Disney?

and it was a great story. Last night Marty came home and mentioned out of the blue that a girl scout had sold $18,000worth of cookies…. strange timing. And you got a lot of fans now (see above) and you are a great cook. AND baker. Gabriel will be pleading for your cookies now that you know the secret from a very famous cookie baker! Why you even have a cousin who has a cookie store! Sometimes the roles you played in the past can feel good again especially when you get older. It makes you feel young again. I agree to say goodbye to the bad roles. adios!!